All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and our next guest on the show today is Mark Sheffield from Policy On Point.
That's, I don't know about this web address.
I bet you PolicyOnPoint.com redirects to this mess.
What do you think?
Mark, is that right?
Yeah.
OK, good.
PolicyOnPoint.com.
Skip the turban, check the brain.
It's called the Persian Gulf for a reason.
It is not.
What the hell are you talking about?
Well, right now, I mean, every time you turn on the news, it's always just bombarded with this news about Iran.
And it just seems like we're kind of just bent.
We're letting this process kind of run itself.
You know, we don't ever step back and try to figure out a constructive way to somehow settle some of our differences.
Because, I mean, we're playing with a real dangerous situation here.
And unfortunately, since it's election time here, nobody can come out, I guess, except for Ron Paul.
Nobody can come out and say, well, maybe we shouldn't sanction their central bank.
Maybe we shouldn't do ABC.
And I don't know.
I've been reading a lot of books about Iran lately.
So it was just running around my brain.
So that's what I ended up writing about.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I think that's a real good point, that if it was just called the Iranian Gulf, it would make it a lot easier.
The fact that it's the Persian Gulf means, I guess, it belongs to the United States of America.
Yeah, and it's kind of strange.
I mean, you don't really think of us occupying the Persian Gulf just because, I don't know, it's a body of water.
But that's essentially what we're doing.
And it's their backyard.
They deserve the opportunity to be able to police the body of water that is their lifeline.
And they, I don't know, there just needs to be some way for us to share power in that region.
Otherwise, they're just going to blow up in a conflict eventually.
And now I don't know exactly all the technicalities of this, but it is considered international waters, the Persian Gulf.
It doesn't just belong to them or, you know, it's not half theirs, half Saudi Arabia's or something like that.
It belongs to, I guess, ship owners of the world or whatever.
But, you know, I think the real point is that, just like in the lack of context about why it's in the Persian Gulf in the first place, because that's where it is off the coast of Iran there.
It's also the lack of context surrounding the entire argument, really, where, you know, TV says, oh, my God, the Iranians are talking about closing the gates of the Persian Gulf.
And people go, oh, my God, but they don't ever explain that.
Like, yeah, because yesterday, you know, or anything, you know what I mean?
Everything they do is a first strike and anything we do is a reprisal.
Like, this is the Gaza Strip or something.
Well, I mean, the media does a really good job of casting them in this demonic light that we're always supposed to be terrified of them.
You know, what are they going to do next?
They're so unpredictable.
But really, they're not.
Most of the things that they do, I mean, they're logical.
They serve their best interests.
And I think that a lot of our strategic goals align with those of Iran.
And I think that if we can somehow start a dialogue with them, maybe not publicly, it would have to start out privately between governments.
But when we move forward with this legislation that bans diplomacy, essentially, I mean, we're just locking out any possibility of an understanding or any sort of real constructive relationship.
Yeah, it's just scary.
You know, I don't really think that they want to close the gates or remove them.
Of course they don't.
It's part of their economy depends on it just as much as the global economy depends on it.
If not more so.
But you can't rule it out.
Like, the farther we push them, it's just hard to tell exactly what they're going to do.
It would be a gamble, and I think it's a bluff right now.
But they are kind of trying to make it known, especially with these war games, in conjunction with this threat.
They are trying to make it known that they do have the capability to do it.
And, you know, the Iranian military is not what it was 20 years ago.
They've got considerable firepower around the Gulf.
And it's just dangerous.
It's a dangerous game to play with them right now.
Well, you know, it's got to be really frustrating to be the head of any foreign state in the world that America picks a fight with when you've got to take into account that the American people don't know anything about it.
And they're only going to understand what they're told by TV today.
And that's only the 5% of people who even care enough to watch the news and even have an interest in what the situation over there is, for the most part.
And so they really can portray this when, for people who, I don't know, say the average Brit probably understands that this is simply the Iranians saying, Hey, look, if you guys start bombing us or if you make it impossible for us to sell any oil in the world, you know, which Flint Levert was on the show yesterday saying they'll still be able to sell for China.
So they're not necessarily saying that sanctions on the central bank would lead them to do this.
Just that kind of thing, if it went too far, if it was more successful.
But, yeah, I mean, basically what they're saying is, hey, look, we could fight back in a couple of ways.
That's all they're saying.
And it's being treated on TV as though Iran is threatening preemptive war against America or some crap like that.
They're treating it like a declaration of economic war when it's just, it's a realistic reaction.
If we were, if somebody was doing that to us, we would flex our muscles a little bit and let them know that you can't push us around forever.
And given all of the things that we've been doing to Iran in the last few years, I mean, go back to Stuxnet, the assassination of all these physicists, you know, these random things just blowing up here and there all around Iran.
And drone, which is a really interesting story, I don't know.
But they haven't really done anything in response yet.
This is kind of, they've even been almost like, I got to write in the piece, they've almost been accommodating.
You know, they've been angry about it, but they haven't done anything to try to incite a response from us or Israel.
And this is just kind of like, they're telling us to kind of slow down, because we are going a little bit too far here.
And I think that, you know, they already have control over a large part of the region.
Maybe not on the geographic lines on the map, it's still Iran, it's still Iran.
But we have to take into account that their sphere of influence is slowly expanding.
And especially in Iraq.
Like, just yesterday when I checked out the news, they were talking about how these different blocs in the government are going to Iran to try to negotiate some sort of settlement between Maliki and the vice president that he issued an arrest warrant for.
And that's just the beginning of this.
You know, that's like one of the first public instances where you can see Iran coming in and directly affecting policy in Iraq.
Well, a reporter reported it back in the days.
It was the Iranians, the Revolutionary Guard, who negotiated the compromise for Jafari from the Da'at Party between Sadr and the Supreme Islamic Council of the Hakeem faction back in 2005, and then negotiated the switch over to Maliki in 2006, and then negotiated the ceasefire between Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi army in 2007.
You know, that whole war was for them, and they've been running it since at least 2004 over there.
Right.
I mean, they've had their hands in it.
But now when I go on the BBC or some other real mainstream news sites, you know, you see these that usually, you know, the mainstream news sites will not run a story like that.
Now it's just public.
Yeah, we can't solve the Iraqis' problem, so where are they going to go?
Iran, of course.
That makes sense.
But...
Well, they're trying to say, well, yeah, this is what happens when America leaves, without having to admit that that's because this is the way America made it while we were there.
Exactly.
And, you know, we had those really bad attack bombings all across Baghdad earlier, I guess about a week ago.
And we, you know, we're gone essentially.
We know we have our huge embassy, we have some mercenaries or whatever, trainers.
But you can't trust the brand new Iraqi military to take over that country and control it completely.
They need Iran's help, and we need to let them help.
Yep.
It's too late to undo it now, ain't it?
You'd think, hell, it's been too late for quite a long time now.
All right, hold it right there.
We got Mark Sheffield on the phone from policyonpoint.com.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and I'm on the line with Mark Sheffield from Policy On Point.
Skip the turban, check the brain.
It's called the Persian Gulf for a reason.
And, you know, you talk in here about Iran's ability to fight back a little bit, where this thing to get too far out of control.
And I think you really just only need the one word, and you found it, silkworm.
That's the reality of a possible war with Iran right there.
Yeah, I mean, they have, you know, the estimates differ, but they have over, you know, the bottom level estimate is they definitely have over 50 to 60 silkworms buried around the Persian Gulf.
And it's just a, it's an anti-ship cruise missile, range of several hundred kilometers.
But since it's in the Persian Gulf, you know, the range is not that big of an issue.
But we do have the countermeasure systems on our ships, but the carrier is about the biggest target you could possibly hit.
I mean, you could, it's the easiest target you could wish for.
And if you just barrage our fleet with silkworms, some of them are going to get through, regardless of what kind of countermeasures we have.
Well, you know, I'm the furthest thing from the expert, and I don't know how much you know about it yourself, but I am under the impression that those things are supersonic.
Yes.
So that's not just a cruise missile.
It's a supersonic cruise missile.
And really the only defense that they have against that is Gatling guns.
Right.
I think the Gatling gun, I'm not an expert on this either.
I'm constantly trying to just learn more.
We need the war nerd over here, but I'm pretty sure that's what he says.
Yeah, exactly.
That's where I started hearing about those Dong Feng 21s that he was talking about.
But the Gatling guns are operated on radar, so it just tracks it and tries to shoot it out of the sky.
And I mean, that's fine and good.
But if they shoot 20 at a carrier, then odds are one's going to get through, or more than one.
And also, I think it was the Brookings Institute that did that war game scenario where they put our fleet up against just massive amounts of small little fast vessels that swarm our fleet.
Actually, that was an actual Pentagon war game back in 2002.
And they got all mad because the guy who was in charge of the red team playing Iran, he sunk the fleet.
And they said, you're fired and someone hit reset and start the video game over again, please.
That's not fair for you to transmit your messages by courier on motorcycle instead of calling up the National Security Agency and giving them all your plans.
So do the drill again, only this time they lose.
Right.
And by the way, the Brookings war game had a catastrophe as well, just a different catastrophe.
Okay, okay.
Well, I mean, either way, it just seems like regardless, you know, they are able to fight us with much cheaper weapons.
You know, we keep a whole fifth fleet there, that's fine, and that's billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of ships.
And in reality, they could beat us with cruise missiles and fast ship-fitting vessels.
So when it comes down to it, even if we do somehow put it in quotation marks in a conflict against Iran, what would the end result be?
We'd probably lose some of our fleet's damage, maybe have some of it sunk.
And the real danger would be, in addition to closing the Straits of Hormuz, is if they start attacking Gulf Arab oil infrastructure.
Because when the Iranians came out and threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia and the rest of them were, you know, that's fine, we'll just offset that loss, if they actually do do that, and actually cause oil prices to fall a little bit, kind of interestingly.
But either way, a lot of that infrastructure in the terminals in the Gulf are pretty susceptible to these, you know, asymmetric tactics, the cheap bombs.
You know, drive just a speedboat into one of these things.
And that would be the real catastrophe, is if they close the Straits of Hormuz and there were significant attacks on other Gulf Arab oil infrastructure in the region.
Well, the 5th Fleet's just sitting there most of the time in port, or major portions of it, and there's, I don't know, how many Marines are sitting there on Bahrain?
Yep.
But, I mean, that's the last line of defense.
Without the 5th Fleet there, then the Iranians could pretty much do whatever they want.
Except for, you know, the Gulf Arabs do spend a lot on their military.
You know, I just read this morning that we're selling Saudi Arabia another $30 billion worth of F-15s.
Great.
At least those work.
We're selling the Japanese the F-35s.
Yeah, they're going to regret that one.
But, yeah, I mean, it's just a mess.
And it's almost like we're infants just yelling at each other.
And we can't just sit down and think for one second and realize that we have a lot of things in common and that our goals should strategically align.
And part of that is just due to our politics.
You know, if we don't recontextualize what a national security threat to Israel is, then every single election cycle that comes around, we're going to have this same Iran bashing every single time.
And it's just, it's gotten old for me after a while.
It's just irritating.
Well, you're telling me.
I mean, the pretext has remained the same.
I've debunked it for five, six, seven years straight on this show.
Like, in specific, ever since I started reading Doc Prather back in, what, in 2003 or something, 2004 maybe.
And I'm really sick of it because no matter how much debunking I do, it never really changes the argument and the way it's conducted.
And you're right.
I mean, what it comes down to, as Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The Atlantic, Ehud Barak, the defense minister, labor leader, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, Likud leader, both admitted to him that, no, they're not afraid of Iran launching a nuclear strike, even if they had nukes, against Israel in a million years.
That's just a lie for the rubes.
What they're afraid of is that there might be a brain drain where young Israelis move away and live in America instead of in Israel.
Or, get this, I love this one, Hezbollah could be emboldened up there in southern Lebanon.
Which means what?
They would be better able to repel an Israeli attack like they've already proven they can without Iranian help?
What are they even talking about?
And for this, the whole rest of the argument is that, oh my God, they're going to nuke us all.
You know, like Michelle Bachmann says, us too, not just Israel, but us too.
Any day now is the argument.
While the leaders of Israel admit that they believe no such thing.
Yeah, and it's honestly painful to watch these debates.
Because, I mean, I'm no expert.
I can only read so much.
And I've only been really paying attention to this sort of stuff for a few years now.
So I'm trying to learn more and more.
But I feel like an expert when I watch those Republican debates.
And I shouldn't be like that.
I should be trying to learn from our statesmen as opposed to being infuriated that they seem to know absolutely nothing about the region.
And it seems like they look at that area as some sort of monolithic entity.
Where we think that Iran, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, would sacrifice their civilization to some abstract form of conquer Israel for the Palestinians.
It just doesn't make any sense.
And the whole argument is baseless.
And it seems that, of course, Ahmadinejad doesn't really help the case when he comes out and says publicly ridiculous things, you know, ad nauseam.
But that's one thing that it's just hard to wrap your mind around Iran.
And I'm not totally there yet either.
Because it's really confusing.
They say one thing, you don't really know if they mean it or not.
And it's tough.
But I think it is very important to realize that they use Israel as a standard to rally people to them.
And they want to slowly break down the Sunni-Shia divide, which they already have to some extent in some parts of the region.
In Syria and Lebanon in particular.
But it's just we can't think of them as some country full of terrorists.
And that's what it seems like.
The Republicans and also Obama now.
That's what is politically tenable at the moment.
Well, you know, a big part of this too, I guess another thing I'm really sick of, is defending the Iranian government.
Because I'm not really defending them.
I'm defending the truth from the lies.
Which happen to be all about them.
But like, man, I think it would be hilarious if someone burned the Ayatollah Khamenei to death.
What do I care about that?
I just don't want it to be us, man.
Right.
That's not our job.
And if there's anything that's apparent from the last ten years, it's that our presence in the region is not a stabilizing factor.
So we need to reassess our position.
Well, from the point of view of Khamenei, it is.
It's great for him.
It sucks for everybody else.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for your time.
I'm sorry we're all out of it.
That's Mark Sheffield, everybody.
Policyonpoint.com.
Appreciate your time.
